Pope Leo XIV urges Catholic migration agency to protect displaced children as aid funding falls

Pope Leo XIV urges Catholic migration agency to protect displaced children as aid funding falls.

Pope Leo XIV has called on the Church to keep welcoming and protecting migrants and refugees, and above all to find new ways to care for the growing number of displaced children, in a video message released on Tuesday, Vatican News reported.

The message was addressed to the council of the International Catholic Migration Commission, which is holding its plenary meeting in Rome from November 10 to 12. The commission, which represents national bishops' conferences and local churches around the world, marks its 75th anniversary this year. It was founded in 1951 by Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI, and American layman James Norris.

"I urge you to persevere in your noble and important mission of strengthening the Church's services to welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants, refugees and returnees," the Pope said, according to Vatican News.

He said that because the number of displaced children "tragically continues to grow," the Church must work with their home countries to remove the causes that force them to flee, while also offering them protection in the countries they pass through and settle in.

Pope Leo noted that the meeting comes at a hard moment, with wars, violence, injustice, natural disasters and widening inequality driving millions of people from their homes. He said a decline in funding for international protection and assistance has made those challenges worse, which makes understanding, dialogue and solidarity all the more important.

Quoting his apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te, the Pope said that "in every rejected migrant it is Christ himself who knocks at the door." He encouraged the commission to keep defending the God-given dignity of migrants alongside other faith-based groups and civil society.

The message was released as Pope Leo continues a 12-day apostolic journey to Latin America, which has taken him to Argentina this week.